Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m so sorry. You must have loved him very much.”
“To my detriment. But, if you notice, I have not run from Neil. And I will not run from you.”
I launched myself across the couch, into El-Mudad’s arms. It was so familiar, yet so strange to me in this context; usually, he held me as Emir, my sex partner, and usually, I was crying for much better reasons.
I’d gone so long without any touch like this. Platonic hugs and pats on the back were awesome, but I needed someone with whom I had a much different emotional connection. Next to Neil, El-Mudad was the only guy for the job.
He let me cry on him for a long time, stroking my hair and occasionally kissing my forehead. I totally got snot on his t-shirt, but he didn’t complain. The sun went down over the Atlantic while he held me, and we watched it together, until we sat in the twilight dark of the living room.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered, reluctant to break the tranquil silence around us.
He made an affirmative noise.
“This house is kind of scary when you’re alone.” I was angling for him to stay. I didn’t care if he knew it. I didn’t care if it was pathetic. “Not in a Scooby-Doo way. I just think if someone broke in all the way on the other side of the house, you know? And you hear all those stories all the time about people living in other people’s houses, and the residents never know—”
“Sophie,” he said, gently scolding. “Ask me to stay.”
I smiled sleepily. “Will you stay?”
“For as long as you need me.”
Like clockwork, Olivia woke just in time for dinner. And, as was so, so typical of me, I’d forgotten to make it.
“Son of a bitch!” I sat up and all the drainage in my cried-out head sloshed forward, giving me and instant, pounding headache. “I forgot to make anything to eat!”
“You still have the mac and cheese,” El-Mudad reminded me while I freaked out. “I’ll go heat it up.”
“Yes! You are a lifesaver!” I told him, and sprinted off to collect Olivia.
The little banshee stood in her crib, holding onto the bars as she howled. Angry tears streamed down her face. I couldn’t imagine it was fun to wake up with wet pants and an empty stomach.
Wait, I could totally imagine that. I went to college.
“Come here, baby.” I lifted her up and seated her on my hip. Her golden curls were sweat-damp at the back of her neck, and her body was warm from sleep. I took her to her changing table and stripped her out of her onesie, all while she screamed and wriggled and was generally furious with me.
“’I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now,’” I teased her. Then, I revised, “Wait. No. I wish the goblins would come and take me away, right now. You can’t appreciate what Bowie is packing.”
I managed to get her into her light cotton sleeper and a bib and carried her to the kitchen, where El-Mudad waited for us with plates of food.
“You’re going to eat this with us?” I asked incredulously.
“Is it poisoned?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then, I think I’ll be fine.” As I buckled Olivia into her high chair, he added, “You know, you shouldn’t always think of me as some mysterious, sophisticated stranger.”
“I don’t think you’re a stranger.” That wasn’t entirely true. What little we knew about him outside of sex was largely superficial. “I do think you’re sophisticated and mysterious.”
“Is that an insult?” His laugh was rich and throaty.
It was also infectious. “It’s not meant to be.”
“You see yourself as wholly apart from this life,” he said. It wasn’t a denouncement but an observation. “It must be nice.”
“Nice?” I scoffed. “Yeah, it’s really nice. I have all this money, a giant house—seven giant houses, two of which I’ve never even seen before—and all I really want is my husband. And he’s like the one thing I can’t have.”
“It’s true, then, that money can’t buy happiness.”
“That’s just what conservatives say to make poor people feel bad about wanting to be rich.” The words were bitter in my mouth, but they were true. And the damn shame of it all was, money really couldn’t buy happiness. But it could buy people like Neil a better chance of recovery from stuff like this. “If we couldn’t afford a private treatment center, what would have happened to him?”
El-Mudad leaned forward, as though he would tell me a secret. “If you worry about what could have happened, how will you have energy to handle the things that have happened?”
“‘Fess up. You’re secretly a therapist.”
He chuckled and picked up his fork. “I went to a lot of trouble to microwave this. Don’t let it get cold.”